


In search for a cure to a fading world

by DustOnBothSides



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Abandoned Factory, Anal Sex, Beer, Demon Summoning, Hux's soft feet, Huxloween, Kylo's bachelor apartment, M/M, Sex, Spiritual sex, Summoning Circles, Who needs lube when you've got magic, urban decay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27339562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustOnBothSides/pseuds/DustOnBothSides
Summary: Kylo feels like his world is slowly fading away, and so he decides to do something about it.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 12
Kudos: 95
Collections: Huxloween 2020





	In search for a cure to a fading world

Kylo kicked some trash out of his way and jumped up on a fire escape. The loud sound his steel-capped work boots made as he landed overpowered the ambient noise of the city sprawl. The hum of the traffic, the low drone coming out of a nearby power plant, the distant sound of jackhammers and excavators. 

He frowned. 

The city was already rotting, yet it continued to spread. Like a disease, like a malignant tumour. He hated it. Hated everything about it. Its schizophrenic architecture, the indifferent people, callous companies. Steelyards, the neighbourhood he currently found himself in, were full of cramped warehouses, cathedral-like foundries, turn of the century factories, distribution substations, tenement houses… all of it left behind to rot. The city had built them, used them, and then moved on and away from the crumbling concrete and rust. It made one think of a crown-of-thorns starfish feeding on coral reefs and leaving nothing but white skeletons in its wake. 

Within the span of less than two years, the area turned from a red-hot seat of the industry to a cold, dead husk and stayed that way in spite of half-hearted pre-election promises of generations of politicians. No one lived in the Steelyards, not even homeless bums who found them too removed from the city life and its opportunities, and the local decay was much too advanced for even the most desperate of addicts. The few souls who lived here were mostly as lost to the world as the Steelyards themselves.

Kylo reached the top of the fire escape and jumped over onto the roof covered by all manner of debris, from chunks of concrete and pieces of twisted, rust-covered rebar to scraps of tar paper and empty paint cans. 

Just before he reached the entrance of the stairway leading into the building itself, he stopped and gazed at the city’s current industrial district. The night had fallen already, but as usual, the living city was surrounded by a yellowish glow amplified by a haze which lapped at its streets. Silhouettes of finger-like chimneys and curved cooling towers stood out against it, dotted by bright stars of white and red. 

As much hate as he had for the city sprawl, he couldn’t deny it a certain charm, especially when viewed from a distance. Adding to that was the scent of apple and cinnamon clinging to his coat, which reminded him that tonight was Halloween. For a moment, he returned to the happier years of his boyhood ignorance. Back then he’d carve pumpkins, cover the house with toilet paper or slime or fake blood, and then he’d wait for someone, usually Aunt Shara, to take him trick-or-treating. His mother took him two or three times, but those days were so far away in the past, he could hardly remember them. 

Things have changed since then, and not just for him. Halloweens nowadays were celebrated in a much more restrained fashion. It was sad. Stores were full of the usual orange and black paraphernalia, there were _Halloween sales_ on this, or _scary discounts_ on that, but looking closely, one could see that each consecutive year there were less and less children out in the streets, less and less pumpkins left out on doorsteps, less and less magic in the air. 

The last one didn’t apply just to All Hallow’s Eve. 

It was a daily phenomenon that no one save for Kylo cared to notice. 

It seemed to him that the city was like a huge snail that retreated into its shell and sealed itself off from the world by a steadily thickening epiphragm. Worst of all - there was no reason for that. Things were as they’ve always been. Which meant the world was always heading this way. 

And so, in order to combat that, Kylo decided to do something childish and utterly absurd. 

He let himself in and descended down to the ground floor. The next door he opened led inside a huge, nave-like space of a former factory hall. Just a couple of weeks back, Kylo had seen surprisingly thick growths of tansy sprouting from cracked concrete near the broken windows. They have wilted and dried since then, but something from their scent still clung to the chilly, dusty air. 

Kylo removed his hands from the pockets, pulled a huge flashlight out of his backpack, and made sure he really had the factory all to himself. Then he turned the flashlight off and set it on the ground. Although the tall, wide windows provided sufficient illumination for him to avoid tripping and breaking his face, he now needed something a bit more powerful. 

That ‘ _something_ ’ was hidden under a tarpaulin sheet nearby. Two construction lights he had procured from an acquaintance. He grabbed them and extended their tripods. A while ago he had found out that some of the sockets here still had power, so he plugged the lights in and positioned them so they shone on a clear spot roughly in the centre of the factory nave. 

He went to his backpack again and emptied it on the dusty floor.

Chalk. Candles. Herbs. Gems. A small tub of salt. A bottle of blood. 

He looked at the array of object and heaved a sigh. It was odd. He had thought that once he’d reach this point, he would feel awkward as hell, but as it happened, he just felt a vague sense of duty. 

And so he started. 

He drew two concentric circles and within them, two triangles forming a six-pointed star, one somewhat smaller than the other. Then he added a trio of nodes extending out of the circle. Next came the symbols. The initial, mundane ones - lead, mercury, and sulphur; copper, cinnabar, and iron - were followed by protective sigils he had attempted to copy from a moth-eaten library book, only to get bored and design his own. 

Finally, he carefully spaced the herbs and gems within the nodes, surrounded the entire thing with salt, poured blood in a tin bowl, and lit the candles. 

Taking a step back, he looked around one more time, letting the beam of his flashlight travel over the general decrepitude of the place, the high, leaking ceiling as well as the suspended walkway - an iron grate too fragile for anyone to even consider putting a foot on it - set just underneath the support beams; but it was empty. It was all empty. 

He heaved another sigh.

Frankly, he hoped it wouldn’t come down to this, because if something was going to make him feel like a fool, it was _this_.

Reaching inside his coat, he pulled out a piece of folded paper. Unfolding it, he glanced at the text scribbled on it with a ball-point pen, winced a little and started to read. 

“ _Hear ye, Powers of the Great Beyond!_ ” he called with a mighty voice which boomed through the factory nave like a tidal wave… before clearing his throat, putting the paper away and continuing in a considerably more subdued manner “…ah, yes… I could use one of your agents, I think. The _world_ could use it. You’ve probably noticed the ongoing decay. Well, I came to the conclusion that a foreign body is needed to shake things up a bit. So if you have someone to spare, that would be peachy.”

He did his best to ignore the awkwardness of this situation, though a part of him had already resigned and urged him to return home and not show his face anywhere for at least a month. After all, he was actually _trying to summon a demon_.

Nevertheless.

A successful manifestation was never his aim. In Kylo’s opinion, the very fact that someone _tried_ , that someone went through with such an outlandish undertaking, meant that the world wasn’t quite beyond help yet. 

He smiled. 

This was enough. 

Wanting to get a broom, he stepped on the circle. 

Salt crunched beneath the sole of his boot. 

All of a sudden, the candles blew out and both lights toppled over, one of them breaking in a burst of sparks, the other falling on top of the tin bowl at the centre of the circle, spilling blood everywhere. Kylo jumped a little, but then he remembered it was autumn and the factory was open to the cold northerly winds. 

Neither of the industrial lights wanted to turn back on, but his flashlight was fine, and under its bright white shine he started to clean the mess he made. Scarcely had he begun to sweep, when a strange sound travelled to his ears. 

It started as a very quiet, nigh imperceptible rustle or shuffling. As it grew louder, punctuated by many irregular pauses, Kylo realised it was sniggering, and in that moment he felt like someone poured ice-water down his back. This time when the beam of his flashlight travelled all over the factory, it shook a little. 

It took a while, but eventually he discerned the direction it came from, and when his light found the source, the sniggers and sounds of suppressed laughter stopped. 

Up on the walkway. There seemed to be some kind of a bundle up there. A bundle that wasn’t there before. 

Kylo was scared, yes, but then again, didn’t the world get a smidgeon more exciting? 

“Who’s there?!” He called. 

“ _The Powers of the GREAT… Beyond!_ ” A clear voice rang with an almost ceremonious tone before dissolving into sniggers again. 

Kylo pressed his lips together and, trying to ignore the warmth rising up his cheeks, he rushed up the stairs and across the walkway he had considered too fragile just minutes ago. 

It was reasonable to think that the person sitting there was just a homeless bum or a junkie who had wandered inside while Kylo was busy. Kylo’s instincts, however, spoke otherwise. Plus, the voice sounded much too regal. 

As soon as the flashlight found the tip of a tattered black cloth and a sliver of pale skin, the light went out. Kylo swore under his breath and hit it a couple of times. Without success. 

“Here, let me.” The voice offered and the flashlight was snatched out of Kylo’s fingers before he could protest. There was a soft sound he couldn’t place, and the light came back on. If it was slightly yellower than before, then Kylo didn’t notice – that’s how much he was taken by the apparition in front of him. 

It was a man with bright coppery hair, who appeared to be completely nude underneath the cloth he was wrapped in. His appearance was the last proof Kylo needed that this was neither a homeless person nor an addict. His limbs were long and graceful, skin perfect and free of any blemish. Peaches and cream and a dusting of freckles the shade of cinnamon. Kylo‘s mouth went dry. Finding a person like him in a place as dead as this city, in a place as faded as this world, was nigh inconceivable. 

“Who…are you?” Kylo asked, trying to keep his calm. 

The stranger’s soft, blossom-pink lips curved up from a relaxed smile into a mischievous one. 

“A ‘Power from Beyond’, perhaps?” He replied, quotation marks clearly audible in his voice. 

“Did… you answer my call?”

The stranger merely shrugged at first. “Hm... I answer to none. I come and go as I please. You just happened to be odd enough to attract my attention.” He explained and tried to stand up. As soon as he did, however, he hissed and fell back on the walkway with a soft thud. 

Kylo immediately rushed to him. 

“What’s wrong?”

“My feet…”

Kylo grabbed one to look for injuries, but he only saw soft skin. Too soft, in fact. Even the sole was silky smooth and baby-pink. As if it never stood on anything hard. 

“This place is too crude.” The stranger commented and flashed Kylo a pained grin as the still somewhat perplexed wannabe-summoner massaged the sole of his foot marked with a clear imprint of the iron grate. 

“What are you?” Kylo finally asked. “Are you a demon?”

His question was answered with another snigger, which was rather languid this time. 

The thing was - there were no horns poking out from the glossy strands of the stranger’s coppery hair, and Kylo just saw for himself that those feet of his lacked even a hint of hardened skin, let alone hooves. 

He closed his eyes and pulled the cloth he was covered in tighter to his body as he started to shiver. “I’m cold…” he sighed. 

“Don’t-… don’t fall asleep. It’s, like, five degrees in here.” 

But the man wouldn’t listen, and so Kylo ended up wrapping his coat around those round, narrow shoulders and carried him back home on his back. Somewhere in the middle of the trip, Kylo’s cargo stirred and started to hum some kind of a song. He tried to catch the words, and it went something like this:

> _The night air smelled of hydrazine_
> 
> _And hot petrol dripped down your chin_
> 
> _But you in your bath of propylene_
> 
> _Dreamed of strontium-coloured sin_

Kylo felt his eyebrows knit.

“It’s _Hux,_ by the way.” The stranger said unexpectedly as they neared Kylo’s small bachelor apartment. 

“What is?”

“I am.”

“Hux.”

“Yes.”

“Is that a name?”

“It could also be an acronym.”

“For what?”

“Hmm… ‘ _humanoid umbrage X_ ’ sounds rather neat. Or it could also be the result of an equation. Or a formula. Hydrogen uranium… plus the Great Unknown.” Hux said and yawned.

By the time Kylo took his keys and unlocked the apartment, he was staring to suspect this Hux character fell asleep, judging by the way he was slumped against his back. 

He couldn’t help but sigh. 

Whatever Hux was, Kylo didn’t think a slender-limbed, delicate creature like him would be of any help when it came to pouring at least a little bit of life in the city’s wilting existence; but Hux’s dubious usefulness and origins notwithstanding, Kylo just couldn’t leave him alone in the Steelyards. Though the world was slowly fading away, certain elements still packed a bite and, unfortunately enough, these elements weren’t as rare as one would’ve wished. They were influenced by the city’s decay in a way that stripped them of their morality and decency. _‘They would’ve loved to plunge their shivs into his soft belly and slice him open to shower the pavement with his blood.’_ Kylo thought to himself as he unloaded his cargo onto the bed and covered him with a blanket.

Just as he suspected, Hux had fallen asleep. 

Kylo smiled a tiny smile. If nothing else, his presence was a welcomed change of pace. 

He opened up a bottle of beer and went out on his tiny balcony. 

This neighbourhood was eerily quiet. The sound of traffic was almost absent in here, there were no drunks shambling down the street singing decades old hits, and though Kylo lived in a pretty large apartment building, it’s been months since he heard a domestic row or a baby crying. It was Halloween, for Christ’s sake. Every other hallway should’ve been quaking with music and the off-key singing of people dressed as vampires or clowns. 

He wondered whether this was some sort of a curse.

Humankind’s loss of vigour – could it have been a punishment for being too lively?

He sipped at his beer and worried again that this was just the natural order of things, a decline following a peak, a wait for someone or something to come and clear the table with one swift motion in order to start anew. 

The last drop of the bitter lager flowed down into his stomach. 

“You sure like to think a lot.” Noted an amused voice behind his back. 

Kylo turned around. 

Hux was standing there, wearing two pairs of Kylo’s fluffiest socks, the cloth from before - and nothing else. 

He shrugged and looked into the bottle. The lights from vending machines and neon signs turned into a blur of greenish circles. 

“Do you want a beer?” He asked. 

“What is a beer?” 

“Never mind that. Do you want one?”

“Sure. I will accept any offering provided.”

Kylo squeezed past him to get into the kitchen corner. He opened his fridge and scanned its contents. A dozen of beers, leftover pizza in a tub, an assortment of condiments, opened can of pineapple, and two quarters of a rotisserie chicken. 

He grabbed two beers and a chicken thigh, which he did his best to reheat in his ancient microwave oven, and added two slices of a slightly stale bread. 

“Here.” He then said as he handed the plate along with one of the beers to Hux, who seated himself on one end of the balcony. “Your offering.”

Kylo sat down on the opposite end and took a gulp from his bottle. 

Though he tried to continue mulling about the city’s dismal fate, his eyes were slowly but surely drawn to his guest, more specifically to his hands. At first he wasn’t sure why, but then he realized. Though Hux was wolfing the chicken down like a man on the brink of starvation, his lily-white fingers remained completely unblemished. Not a stain of grease anywhere.

Hux stopped eating and gave Kylo a quizzical look. He licked his soft, perfectly clean lips, whose colour reminded one of marshmallows and blooming cherry trees, and sank his teeth into what remained of the chicken, snapping off the top of the thigh bone with one dainty bite. 

“You’re… not supposed to eat that.” Kylo said, his face having gone pale. 

“Oh. Sorry.” Hux replied once he chewed the bone to a pulp and swallowed. 

He gave the plate of leftovers a look of regret and put it aside.

“So… are you a demon?” Kylo repeated his previous question. 

Hux took a sip of his beer, grimaced at the bitterness of hops and shrugged. 

“What would you consider a demon?”

“Hmm… I’m not sure. A fallen angel, who rebelled against God, I guess. Were you there? Did you see the shining hosts casting the tarnished ones into the abyss of Hell guarded by Satan’s daughter Sin and their child Death?”

Hux smiled and gazed down to the ground. 

His and Kylo’s feet were separated by a distance of about twenty centimetres. 

“That sounds very poetic, but no. I haven’t seen anything of that sort. Does it make me something different from a demon? Perhaps. Who knows? I’ve been around for a while, but I’ve never been approached by any sort of administrative entity that would tell me what exactly I am. There is just the unfathomable light above and the equally impenetrable darkness below. And this-“ he waved his arm wildly through the air between them “is just an amalgam of both. You ask me what I am, but I ask: ‘ _What is this world?_ ’ I see it, but I don’t understand _any_ of it. Why do some fields lay barren while cracks in some pavements give birth to dandelions? Why are some people unhappy when surrounded by family? Why do birds sometimes fall out of the sky, why does it sometimes snow in April?”

“Oh.” Kylo muttered, taken aback. He had hoped Hux would bring some answers. Any answers. Instead it seemed that he was even more confused than Kylo.

“I’ve been thinking. Perhaps it’s true what some say. Perhaps this world really _was_ created by Yaldabaoth. The son who is blind to his mother’s glory, blind to the presence of Pleroma. An arrogant creator full of pride, who is weaving souls out of the weightless bliss of Aether and into the material world with all its filth and hardships. Did this happen to me as well? If so, then perhaps _you_ are a tool of Yaldabaoth, Kylo. How amusing.

“But then again, perhaps I am Choronzon, the voice resounding through the Abyss, deafening one’s ears to the tune of true wisdom and enlightenment. 

“Or maybe we - all of us - are the tarnished hosts, and this is our Abyss. We have been cast in here in order to torture one-another. And perhaps we, the immaterial ones, were made by you, the children of the world. Perhaps we sprung, ready to use, out of your heavy, anxiety-ridden foreheads. Out of your loins, out of your dirty human hearts that forever search for someone to blame your ineptitude on.”

“And perhaps you are a liar.” Kylo interjected, frowning. 

“Could be. If so, than out of the sin of ignorance.”

“So you at least _imply_ you’re a demon. But how do I know you are what you suggest?”

Hux gave him a decidedly cat-like smile and leaned forward, filling the space between their feet with his hands. 

“And how do I know _you_ aren’t one, Kylo Ren?”

“I… I’m just a normal guy.” Kylo tried to insist while his throat went mysteriously dry. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from Hux’s long eyelashes, which framed his pale blue eyes with gold. 

“A normal guy who uses his own blood to perform questionable rituals, who creates his own breaching sigils. Personally, I find such ways rather solipsist, but perhaps you are validated by your nature.”

“Well, now you’ve really lost me.” He admitted, turning his gaze away because Hux was leaning in more and more, and the cloth slipped away from his creamy skin, leaving nothing to fantasy, and his lips were soft and slightly moist from the beer he just drank. Kylo’s apprehensions and urges were crashing against one-another, leaving him frozen and vulnerable. 

Hux’s smile widened a fraction, and there he was, snug in Kylo’s lap, wrapping his slender arms around broad shoulders, around the sturdy torso. Kylo looked up just in time to see Hux’s pink tongue slide over his upper lip, and the trail of moisture left behind seemed to glow in the cold light of the fluorescent tubes, and then, and then they kissed, and the intrusiveness of the kiss made something surge within Kylo. His instincts took over, making him grab Hux’s shoulders, pin him to the ground, and thoroughly explore his hot, hot mouth, the soft shape of his jaw, the delicate skin of his throat, the smooth lines of his clavicles. 

There he stopped, lavishing everything within his reach with feverish attention, one of his hands cradling the nape of Hux’s neck, fingers carding through the hair, the other squeezing the soft, supple flesh of his buttocks. Hux let out a series of small gasps and tried to press himself even closer to Kylo, who could feel it even through the layer of his clothes - the rising heat, the raw need. 

Kylo’s hand moved away from both thoroughly kneaded cheeks and into the crevice between them. His mouth pressed an open-mouthed kiss into the juncture of Hux’s neck, sucking the skin in, biting it. Hux cried out and spread himself open to Kylo’s ministrations. He was so incredibly hot, it felt like his insides were filled with lava. When Kylo breached him with his middle finger, sinking his teeth into his neck at the same time, Hux’s back arched and, wrapping his arms around Kylo’s shoulders, he spilled his seed on his belly and Kylo’s chest. 

But even as his heart rate calmed down, his nether regions didn’t, for which Kylo was immensely grateful. 

He scooped Hux up into his arms and carried him onto his bed, where the redhead waited, spread out and wanting, for his lover to strip himself bare. 

When Kylo descended onto him, he tasted Hux’s nipples first, but soon he moved down, eager to reach the soft golden trail which he followed with several detours to swirl his tongue over both hip-bones. Hux was amazingly receptive to his caresses. His soft sighs and unrestrained moans filled the small bachelor apartment with exquisite music.

Finally, Kylo’s tongue traced the upward curve of his member and pulled his foreskin down just as his lips closed around the glans.

Hux couldn’t bear such teasing. He pulled Kylo up and licked his lips bedewed by his own cum. 

Kylo parted from him long enough to whisper something about having to grab the lube. Hux gave him a fleeting smile and pulled him back down by wrapping his leg around Kylo’s waist and tugging. 

“Do it. Now. I won’t wait a second longer.” He ordered hoarsely. 

That low, growling, animalistic tone did it. 

Kylo took advantage of that form which opened itself up to him in such an inviting fashion and probed it again, first softly and with care, then more forcefully when he noticed the inner walls of his passage were already miraculously slick. He lined himself up and sheathed his manhood with one slow, protracted thrust. Hux’s body welcomed him and Kylo drove into it, his lips never parting from the throat, the jaw, the ear of his oneiric lover.

He had never felt like this before. 

His feelings went several steps beyond a simple carnal pleasure. Hux was a flame, the kind of _life_ whose vigour was simply peerless. This was the radiance Kylo wanted to return to the world. It lit up a desperate need within his chest – a need to possess Hux. As he was making love to him, revelling in the heat of his body, the tightness of his hole, the sweetness of his skin, a strange emotion blossomed in the pit of his stomach. It was fear. 

Hux would go away, sooner rather than later, and he would be left behind, alone in the vanishing world. 

Just as he started to feel like he was standing above a very deep gorge and slipping, Hux buried his fingers in Kylo’s hair and impaled himself onto Kylo’s length so it would sink deeper than ever before. Both grounded and spurred by the heat of his lover’s body, Kylo didn’t last long. He came hard, spilling his seed deep within Hux. Taking a ragged breath, he collapsed next to his lover and put his head on Hux’s sweat-covered chest. 

They remained like this for a while, Kylo catching his breath, Hux absent-mindedly stroking his hair. He even fell asleep for a moment. Hux’s warmth was just too inviting, his scent too intoxicating. 

He woke up several minutes (hours?) later to strange words whispered into his ear. 

“Hm?” he muttered and Hux drew a little bit closer. 

“Show it to me. Your vision.” He whispered and did-… _something_. 

Without any warning, Kylo found himself suffused by a sensation that was neither emotion, nor music, sweetness, nor pain, but all of it simultaneously and then some. He gasped for air, afraid he might drown in it, and just then the redhead put his hand above Kylo’s heart. And the hand just-  
-sank. 

There was no blood, no pain, just a strange impression of falling into himself while being splayed open for Hux’s eyes and his gentle touches. Kylo almost panicked, but then Hux’s lips brushed against his in a sweet, soft kiss, and just like that his fear was blown away. What remained was indescribable pleasure that made Kylo come a second time without him even realizing.  
When Kylo came to, it was morning already. He was supposed to be at work by now, but that was the last thing on his mind, for the bed he had expected to wake up alone in still held his unearthly lover. Hux was smiling at him lazily, his eyelids swollen from sleep. 

“Now I see.” He muttered and yawned. 

Behind the curve of his shoulder, Kylo could see the world outside his balcony. It was gone. There was nothing but fog, thick and white like milk, like a giant snow-drift. The world on the other side was waiting, but right now Kylo just couldn’t bring himself to care. Hux tangled their legs together and Kylo nuzzled against him. 

“Do you want to go out and start your work?”

“Maybe we could wait until after lunch.” Kylo smiled, brought Hux’s hand to his lips and kissed its knuckles. 

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Some notes:
> 
> Yaldabaoth/Demiurge is a deity from Gnosticism, a weird (but really interesting) and surprisingly ancient Christian sect.  
> Choronzon is a demon mainly mentioned in Aleister Crowley's work Thelema.  
> The mention about the abyssal Hell guarded by Satan's daughter Sin and the fruit of their incest Death is borrowed from Milton's _Paradise Lost_.
> 
> Kudos and comments will be greatly appreciated. 
> 
> I've missed Halloween, but I still hope people will enjoy this little story.


End file.
